Remember the parable of The Scorpion and The Frog? It's the story of
the venomous and inveterately aggressive arachnid who asked the cautious
and appropriately skeptical amphibian to give him a ride across a river.

"But what if you sting me?" asked The Frog.

"Why would I want to do that? Since I cannot swim, then we would
both die," replied The Scorpion.

Reassured by The Scorpion's logic, The Frog agreed to give him a ride.
But at mid-passage across the river, The Frog felt the deadly sting of
The Scorpion's tail.

Before succumbing, The Frog asked, "Why did you sting me?"

The Scorpion replied "Ahh, because it's my nature. I am, after all,
a scorpion."

Many conservatives and libertarians may empathize with The Frog, as they
too are feeling the sting of several policy decisions made by President
George W. Bush, all antagonistic to their core convictions.

In
the hope of shoring up his political support in steel-producing states
such as Pennsylvania and West Virginia, President Bush has imposed steel
import tariffs. While saving few jobs, these duties will raise prices
of steel-intensive products used by all Americans. Encouraging retaliatory
actions by foreign governments, the tariff also threatens to provoke an
economically destructive trade war. Bush's free-trade supporters are predictably
alienated.

For fear of being perceived as a shill for special interests, and in
the hope of stealing the thunder of his political nemesis John McCain,
Bush has reversed his earlier opposition to campaign finance reform, and
quietly signed the McCain-Feingold Bill. This in spite of the bill's --
now the law's -- pernicious, and surely unconstitutional, restrictions
on both freedom of speech and political competition

Eager to be seen "doing something" about a dysfunctional public
school system, Dubya sought the dubious backing of Senator Kennedy for
his education bill. The resulting compromise sacrificed The President's
already tepid commitment to educational choice in exchange for legislation
that spends still more federal funds with only an uncertain promise that
"standards of accountability" will, somehow, bring about better
student attainments.

To all these recent breaches of faith must be added last year's tax package.
Seemingly designed only to allow the President to lay claim to having
"cut taxes", the resulting abatements were trifling in their
size, tardy in their enactment, anemic in their economic effect, and,
since they are only scheduled to last until the end of 2010, ephemeral
besides. The Bush tax cut is seen by many conservatives and libertarians
as a disappointment, if not a travesty.

You may wonder: why the President would betray the principles he professes
to uphold, and, as a result, alienating a loyal base of support he surely
does need?

No need to wonder. The President can't help himself. It's his nature.
He is, after all, a Bush.

His father, the former President George H.W. Bush, engaged in similar
accommodations. There were his expansions in funding for many domestic
programs, such as Head Start. There were his endorsements for meddlesome
regulatory initiatives such as the Americans with Disabilities Act. All
this allowed The Elder Bush to take a philanthropic pose, while doing
little besides increasing litigation, bureaucratic intrusiveness, and
federal spending. The resulting fiscal strains combined with a recession
and the war in the Persian Gulf to encourage the former President in his
most infamous betrayal of all: The breach of his "no new taxes"
pledge. This alienated him from his conservative base, and, more than
anything else, helped make him the failed, one-term president he soon
became.

But no matter. For it was in The Elder Bush's nature to regard principles
of minimalist government with embarrassment. After all, ideological fealty
interfered with what his New England patrician upbringing told him was
a more noble purpose he was obliged to pursue: Cooperation with his politically
more-aggressive opponents, and their compassionate-sounding agendas. His
privileged birth made him too guilt-ridden, and too conflict-adverse,
to do otherwise.

The father seems to have raised his son, Dubya, to be similarly dismissive
of limited government precepts whenever these might obstruct what-he-takes-to-be
pragmatism. For the Younger Bush and his team of political manipulators,
pragmatism seems to be defined by this strategy: (1) Hold onto the War
On Terrorism-induced near-universal popularity Dubya enjoys by supporting
positions which, though substantively flawed, are superficially appealing
to the broader, ideologically indifferent, public; (2) Coerce those more
politically-principled supporters alienated by such adulterated expediencies
with this threat: If you are foolish enough to oppose this popular President,
you will risk either (a) embarrassing yourselves if you fail to unseat
him, or, (b) electing as President a Democrat even worse than he, should
you, perchance, succeed in deposing him.

In all this, The Younger Bush gambles that ideas have no consequences:
That by compromising or abandoning minimalist political doctrines, he
will do no discernable harm to either the nation, or to himself. The President
wagers his tariff will let him take the credit for saving steel worker's
jobs, while escaping the blame for its inevitably upward pressure on steel
prices, as well as the possible trade war it might provoke. By not vetoing
McCain-Feingold, Bush hopes to be seen as as a courageous champion of
the public interest, while avoiding being recognized as a political opportunist
faithful neither to his own past position on campaign finance reform nor
to the Constitution he has sworn to preserve, protect and defend. By abandoning
school choice in return for Ted Kennedy's endorsement of his education
bill, Dubya hopes to be praised for addressing the problems of the public
schools, while evading condemnation for his failure to insist upon what
is necessary to actually solve these problems. By sponsoring a tax reduction
so small, gradual, and temporary that it functions more as a political
token than as serious fiscal policy, the President makes a bid at winning
a reputation as a tax-cutter -- a very stingy bid.

In making this wager that principles don't really matter in politics,
Bush the Younger also ignores the experience of his father. By endorsing
heedless spending and regulation, and then reneging on his promise not
to raise taxes in an attempt to bring down the deficit, Bush the Elder
became politically-blameworthy not only for economic under-performance
but also for political duplicity. The broad, but shallow, political support
he gained as a result of successful prosecution of the Gulf War rapidly
eroded. Unbuoyed by his conservative and libertarian political base made
skeptical of the worth of his words, The Elder Bush's re-election drowned
in humiliating defeat.

By emulating his father's heedless abandonment of the precepts of limited
government while disregarding its disastrous outcome, The Younger Bush
seeks to be pragmatic, but risks failure instead. By disregarding the
simple truth that ideas indeed have consequences, Dubya may well confront
another truth: Abandoning ideas whose faithful application will likely
have successful consequences merely for the sake of trying to be popular
is apt to result in failure, and failure is never popular.

But no matter. The President can't help himself. Unprincipled accommodation
is his nature. He is, after all, a Bush.